A HIGH-profile group’s reforestation initiative in Nan will start in July with the intention of galvanising local farmers to help implement the programme and make it sustainable.

The Plant It Now Group has designated around 500 rai (80 hectares) of land in Nan’s Santisuk district as the pioneer area for the campaign to grow a forest instead of a maize field.

The group was set up by famous rapper Apisit Opas-aimlikit, or “Joey Boy”, former candidate for Bangkok governor Suharit Siamwalla and advertising film director Thanonchai Sornsriwichai. This famous group of people came together as a consequence of an issue going viral on the Internet – the bald mountains in Nan deforested because of the widespread maize plantations in forestland.

Suharit stated on his Facebook page after he returning from Nan that the deforestation situation was very severe because farmers wanted to have a higher income by growing more maize in converted forestland. He said farmers had to change their production and make a living sustainably via agro-forestry to solve the problem.

“The deforestation began with the maize price guarantee, which makes it the most profitable crop, so growing more forests is not the final answer for this problem because they will be cut down again if we don’t have the cooperation of local people,” he said.

He believes agro-forestry would be a sustainable way to encourage farmers to grow forests, as they can earn a living doing so.

Santi Opaspakornkit, one of the group’s coordinators and vice president of the Thai Cycling for Health Association, said that about half of the 500 rai of land designated for reforestation included a maize plantation and the other half was land seized by the Royal Forestry Department (RFD).

Santi explained that the Plant It Now Group was negotiating with locals to grow a forest instead of maize by giving them financial support.

“We are currently planning the negotiation terms and how we will pay farmers to grow and look after the forest,” he said.

“We start from this small step in order to be a spark a reforestation trend in society and we would like to be a role model for other reforestation campaigns.”

Suharit insisted that society had to act now to save forests and there should be more reforestation campaigns to protect such areas.

The RFD launched an operation to suppress new forest encroachments yesterday in an area of more than 5,000 rai in Nan’s Wiang Sa district.